Meet Ella Stewart, the brains and heart behind Bake Well Being

Val: Who is Ella?

Ella:  I am 22 years old and a recent graduate of University of Greenwich.   I graduated last year and was basically spat out into this pandemic and had absolutely nothing going on. I did my degree in Events Management. Events is very difficult to be in right now, with the pandemic and the lock downs, so it was a perfect time for this idea of BAKE WELL BEING to come about.  I needed something to put my time into and a project to work on.  I live in London and since graduating my whole life has been taken over by my social enterprise. 

Val: How long have you been baking?

Ella:  I have been baking since I can remember.  I think the first time I baked was with my Nan.  She was the first person that ever baked with me when I was really little.  We would make fairy cakes, just little cupcakes with the icing sugar and water icing, really basic.  But it is something that I feel she passed down to me.  I think her generation baked a lot, probably more so than our generation now.  I think it was about five or six years ago I thought I would bake a cake for somebody’s birthday, and you know you make that one and then everyone wants a cake. So I started baking cakes for people and it was probably last year that I realized baking was actually a massive stress reliever for me, and that there was much more to it than producing a cake to sell.  That is when I thought about baking in a different light.

Val:  Did it just come over you that you felt less stressed after you baked?  Did you read something about it or was it just organic.  Did something just click in your head?

Ella:  Yes, it actually was just organic.  I hadn’t read anything about baking being linked with mental health or wellbeing until the lockdown, but it was a bit before that when my boyfriend had an idea about “cupcake therapy.” And, I thought, ‘that is just a fantastic idea.’  I

It was not until I decided that I was going to throw myself into this business plan that I realized that there are communities like yourselves (Depressed Cake Shop) and individual bakers that are doing this as well and have made that connection.  I realized it is really a thing.

Val:  Yes, John Waite from “The Great British Bake Off” has talked about cake and depression, and Scarlett Curtis wrote years about how baking helped with her depression in the Daily Mail.  I think you are right that the pandemic really brought it to light.  I got so many calls from journalists about stress baking and my response was “I have been stress baking since I was six.”  This was not news to me.  

So, tell me about pitching your idea to the University of Greenwich and what transpired after that.

Ella:  The seed was sown from this conversation I had with my boyfriend probably a year ago.  I was starting my final year at Uni and he asked me what I was going to do post Uni, and I said “I have no idea what the future looks like for me, but I would like to run my own business and work for myself, and I’ve always been a massive advocate for mental health.  I think it is just so important so I if I could do something that really had meaning as well.  

Then he asked “Is cupcake therapy a thing?” And I thought ‘I think I’m going to make it a thing.’  So, I stole the idea and ran with it and then it wasn’t until six months later that the university sent out an email and the headline was Have You Got A Business Idea?  It was that heading that made me think ‘actually, I think I do.’  I filled in the application with my basic idea. — it was really just a dream at that point — and after you get through that stage they set you up with a mentor and then you go through workshops, learning how to create a business plan, and how to connect with customers and communities and things like that, and then it started to take shape. 
I got through to the semifinals and got to pitch it, like a proper “Dragon’s Den” which was really nerve-racking.  And, then that went well, so I got into the finals which unlocked a bit of funding.  And, so I thought well, that’s it then, let’s go for it!’

Val:  What were the steps you took to make your dream a proper business once you graduated?

Ella:  I spent the first three weeks of lockdown reading about how to set up a business, and then I took straight to social media, and then I started contacting as many people as I could who have made that link already.  I just chatted to them and created some content and that was picked up by a few universities, especially my own who had been keeping tabs on me, so I was lucky to have that connection.

Then, they asked me to do a bake along for students and I said, “absolutely, it would be fab to get students baking and thinking about their well being and mental health” and then it went from there.  

There were two things I did to qualify myself to be able to provide mental health support in addition to the baking, I took a Mental Health First Aider’s Course in July and I am now doing a Wellness and Resilience Coach diploma.  I will receive that qualification this summer.

Val:  Good for you!   You are such an inspiration!  What was your first sign that things were moving in the right direction? Was there one moment when it really clicked?

Ella:  I think it was quite recently when two things happened.  One was when a corporate company asked me to do a mental health and wellbeing workshop for their staff.

I felt like ‘wow, this could actually go somewhere.  People are interested in what I have to say.’

Then, secondly was how excited I got about you asking me to do this.

I don’t think you realize that I have been following the Depressed Cake Shop since I started Instagram.  You are one of the first accounts that I came across.  I thought ‘this is amazing.’ I loved the concept, so much of what you have been doing has inspired me.  It is very odd to hear you say that you are inspired by me when I have been so inspired by you.

Val: Now tell us about the Bake Well Being Baking Club

Ella: It was an idea to get more people baking in 2021.  The UK have just gone into another national lockdown last week and it’s going to be a bit longterm.  So I thought this is the perfect time to get everyone baking again in the same way they turned to it the first lockdown
I thought that I would create a structure and a schedule and a monthly challenge for everyone to bake with a certain ingredient.  

I did my dissertation on mental health within the events industry so I had so much research on mental health and stress and I had all these resources.  So, I thought if people are signing up to bake I am going to send them these resources as well. 

I themed each month with a different mental health or well being topic and I will email both the ingredient and the resources each month.   Then, people can join by dropping me a Direct Message and I will send the email with the welcome pack.

We have a Facebook group going where we have all types of bakers, experienced bakers and people who have never baked at all so they can help each other.

On the last Wednesday of every month I will be doing a live talk with the people in the club where we can share our resources and pictures of the bakes that we have done and any new baking techniques we have tried that month.  My hope is that it will create a nice community  where people will feel supported in their baking and will feel comfortable talking about their mental health.

Val:  My last question is what is your stretch goal?

Ella: I would love to host a big event once the pandemic has passed in collaboration with yourselves. And other bakers within the community and just create a big massive event that gets noticed, and I would love to be on This Morning.

Val:  The all sounds very achievable.  It was a pleasure to meet you!  I am looking forward to all of our future baking adventures!

If you would like to hear the whole conversation tune into @depressedcakeshop on Instagram’s Insta TV.